OBJECTS OF INTEREST
53
Elizabeth, a gardener digging came upon the
stone coffin itself, which being opened the bones
were discovered, but crumbled to dust on exposure
to the air. The monks for many generations
continued to exercise the powers and privileges
granted to them, with varying fortunes, dependent
on the favour, or the contrary, of kings, whose
resort this monastery frequently was. Their in-
fluence was no doubt in many ways beneficent,
and it is probable that we enjoy even at the
present time some of the fruits of their arbitrary
power. It was to the special permission to en-
close, referred to on p. 111 and to the foresight
often shown by the religious orders, that we
probably owe the preservation as timber trees of
the fine groves of beeches in the Forest, known
as Monk Wood and High Beach Grove. Their
relations with the surrounding people were not
always of the most friendly character. Then, as
now, rights of pasturage caused differences of
opinion, though the following extract seems to
show that they were not always so successfully
championed as at the present day. Farmer, the
historian, relates how, "when Simon de Seham
was abbot, in the 30th Henry III. (1245), a dis-
pute arose between the abbot and the townsmen
of Waltham about the common lands. The men
of Waltham came into the marsh, which the abbot
and his convent formerly enjoyed as several to
themselves, and killed four mares, worth forty
shillings sterling at least, and drove away all the
rest; the abbot was politely pleased for the pre-
sent not to take notice thereof. Next year the
same men of Waltham went to the abbot the
Tuesday before Easter, in the name of the whole
village, and demanded of him to remove his mares
and colts out of the marsh. This the abbot
refused to do, adding that if his bailiffs had
placed his cattle otherwise than they ought, they
might do well to have it amended, and yet so as
to defer the matter till the Tuesday after Easter.
On that Tuesday, Richard, brother to the King,
Duke of Cornwall, came to Waltham, at which